Mt Wellington Cable Car Proposal is Un-economic and Socially Divisive.

 The Australian Greens have welcomed the release of the Wellington Park Management Trust’s summary of representations from the last round of reviews of the Wellington Park Management Plan.

Senator Peter Whish-Wilson stated it was interesting to note that out of the 226 representations only 10% of submissions supported a cable car proposal. 

 “Of that only six representations out of the 25 supporting a cable car also supported development outside of the Springs area.

 “This shows how people who support a cable car don’t understand how much development will be required for it to be actually economic.

 “Last year I met with Sky Rail owner and consultant Dr Ken Chapman in Cairns and he described the business case for a cable car on Mount Wellington as very complicated and far from certain to be economic.

“What concerned me most about my meeting with Dr Chapman was his view that a cable car is not economic just as a ‘transport business.’

“He described the cable car as a ‘packaged experience’ business, which requires a whole series of tourism experiences, services and assets combined with the transport element to be successful. 

“In other words the viability of the Cairns Cable Car relies on experiential tourism that includes restaurants, cafes, shops, interpretation experiences, indigenous and cultural experiences, potentially a combination of, and a whole swag of other development. 

“In Cairns they get 2 million visitors a year which is around 10 times the current Mount Wellington number and people are prepared to pay up to $350 per person for such a packaged experience. 

“The comparatively low Wellington Park visitor numbers, combined with local economic conditions, weather and wind factors of the Mountain, makes the cable car potentially an economically, environmentally and socially unfavorable project.”

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